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BROOKLYN, NEW YORK— Hurricane Sandy hit hard in New York's coastal neighborhoods, including Brighton Beach, Coney Island and Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn. A volunteer effort, Clean Up Sheepshead Bay, drew people from the borough and beyond who wanted to help. Daniel Rudoy, who lives in Sheepshead Bay, organized those who turned out on a bright, bitter morning.

“We'll be going to shelters, business owners, homeowners,” he told the first to arrive. “If there's more people here than we actually need, we're just going to go up and down the block and just offer help to anybody who might need it.”

The volunteers headed off, most to help at the Warbasse Houses, five high-rise apartment buildings that are home to about 6,000 people, including many elderly Russian immigrants.

Warbasse general property manager Thomas Auletti said about half the residents refused to leave before the storm, despite the city’s evacuation order. He estimated that more than a third are still there, living without elevator service, heat, power or water.

According to Auletti, the only help to arrive thus far has been local. “I need security,” he said angrily. “I've been asking for the National Guard since Tuesday, I've been told they are coming; they're not here. I've been unable to get Red Cross or FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] help. I've been asking, I put calls in - [and] no assistance,” Auletti said.

“The situation went from bad to worse, it's getting cold out there,” an organizer told the crowd. “A lot of people are unable to come down themselves. We don't know when that's going to happen.”

Volunteers received a hasty briefing and were sent in small groups to offer help to remaining residents on all 23 floors of each building. They climbed stairwells and knocked on doors in halls that were pitch-black and largely silent.

“There's got to be somebody here. Who is that? Do you need some help?” called out Anna Lederman, one in a group of three young women who spoke Russian. Residents in two apartments on the 15th floor thanked them, but said they would remain for now.

Lederman, a nurse, said she felt an obligation to contribute her time and energy to those in damaged neighborhoods, though she doesn't live nearby.

“I decided to come out here because I think, as young people, it is our duty, and we should walk up these stairs and find out what is needed. I would want the same done for me, I think, if I was in this situation,” she said.

On the 16th floor, Liana Nass, a Russian-born music teacher, invited the volunteers in. She said that a back problem made it difficult for her to walk up and down the stairs, and that she and her husband still preferred to remain in their apartment. They had nowhere else to go, she said, and they had enough food and water and blankets. But trying to study English at night by candlelight was difficult, she conceded.

Auletti and other organizers predicted that power and water in the buildings will not be restored for at least a week. They said that as temperatures drop and a possible new storm threatens New York, emergency aid and shelters must be in place for residents who choose to leave.

Manned deep space missions are still a long way off, but space agencies are already testing procedures, equipment and human stamina for operations in extreme environment conditions. Small groups of astronauts take turns in spending days in an underwater lab, off Florida’s southern coast, simulating future missions to some remote world. VOA’s George Putic reports.

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Manned deep space missions are still a long way off, but space agencies are already testing procedures, equipment and human stamina for operations in extreme environment conditions. Small groups of astronauts take turns in spending days in an underwater lab, off Florida’s southern coast, simulating future missions to some remote world. VOA’s George Putic reports.

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Fifty years ago, lawmakers approved, and U.S. President Lyndon Johnson signed, the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The measure outlawed racial discrimination in voting, giving millions of blacks in many parts of the southern United States federal enforcement of the right to vote. Correspondent Chris Simkins introduces us to some civil rights leaders who were on the front lines in the struggle for voting rights.

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Billions of dollars of so-called ‘dirty money’ from the proceeds of crime - especially from Russia - are being laundered through the London property market, according to anti-corruption activists. As Henry Ridgwell reports from the British capital, the government has pledged to crack down on the practice.

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Ottawa, Illinois, is the hometown of W.D. Boyce, who founded the Boy Scouts of America in 1910. In Ottawa, where Scouting remains an important part of the legacy of the community, the end of the organization's ban on openly gay adult leaders was seen as inevitable. VOA's Kane Farabaugh reports.

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Artificial limbs, including the most complex of them – the human hand – are getting more life-like and useful due to constant advances in tiny hydraulic, pneumatic and electric motors called actuators. But now, as VOA’s George Putic reports, scientists in Germany say the future of the prosthetic hand may lie not in motors but in wires that can ‘remember’ their shape.

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A British pro-democracy group has accused Russia of abusing the global law enforcement agency Interpol by requesting the arrest and extradition of political opponents. A new report by the group notes such requests can mean the accused are unable to travel and are often unable to open bank accounts. VOA's Henry Ridgwell reports.

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Talks on a major new trade agreement among 12 Pacific Rim nations are said to be nearing completion in Hawaii. Some trade experts say the "positive atmosphere" at the discussions could mean a deal is within reach, but there is still hard bargaining to be done over many issues and products, including U.S. drugs and Japanese rice. VOA's Jim Randle reports.

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Earth is in the midst of its sixth mass extinction. The last such event was caused by an asteroid 66 million years ago. It killed off the dinosaurs and practically everything else. So scientists are in a race against time to classify the estimated 11 million species alive today. So far only 2 million are described by science, and researchers are worried many will disappear before they even have a name. VOA’s Rosanne Skirble reports.

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Scientists have long been trying to develop an effective protection and cure for malaria - one of the deadliest diseases that affects people in tropical areas, especially children. As the World Health Organization announces plans to begin clinical trials of a promising new vaccine, scientists in South Africa report that they too are at an important threshold. George Putic reports, they are testing a compound that could be a single-dose cure for malaria.

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The latest issue of 'New York' magazine features 35 women who say they were drugged and raped by film and television celebrity Bill Cosby. The women are aged from 44 to 80 and come from different walks of life and races. The magazine interviewed each of them separately, but Zlatica Hoke reports their stories are similar.

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Greece has replaced Italy as the main gateway for migrants into Europe, with more than 100,000 arrivals in the first six months of 2015. Many want to move further into Europe and escape Greece’s economic crisis, but they face widespread dangers on the journey overland through the Balkans. VOA's Henry Ridgwell reports.

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A U.N. climate conference in December aims to produce an ambitious agreement to fight heat-trapping greenhouse gases. But many local governments are not waiting, and have drafted their own climate action plans. That’s the case with Paris — which is getting special attention, since it’s hosting the climate summit. Lisa Bryant takes a look for VOA at the transformation of the French capital into an eco-city.